February 15, 2012

dam film fest block 16 "animation - parallel dimensions"

this ended up being the very strongest block (as a whole) of the festival.

"going up"
great puppetry animation about an elevator ride.

"ad & subtract"
cartoon about a guy who edits incoming resumes seeking replacements for his job. not good.

"live outside the box"
very cool chinese computer animation about a guy who lives in an extremely small neighborhood populated by an evil building. in any other grouping of films, this would probably be my favorite.

"nimbus machina"
great great cross of classic and computer animation done entirely in shades of black. (mildly reminiscent of tom terrific.) a complicated train-like engine is struggling to run, but why?

"bottle"
oh. my. god. this is old school stop-motion animation ... a pile of beach sand and a snow ball communicate by stuffing objects into a bottle thrown in the ocean. absolutely exquisite, superb and poignant. in the strongest set of the festival, this was my favorite ... i was very surprised that it was also the audience's pick as well.

"999.999.999"
the future is both an interesting and hard place for very vertically drawn characters.

"fantastic plastic"
what happens when you're known for your singing nose and it gets cut off? the drawing style is heavily influenced by ren and stimpy.

"the tannery"
beautiful animation of a world where everything dies and goes to heaven ... unless, of course, people keep your hide.

"the girl and the fox"
a girl goes hunting, but then needs the fox she was stalking to make it through the night. simple and beautiful.

"rebekah 4"
interesting animation of a world where everyone (except for one person ... and then two!) are the same. would be better if the story line wasn't so obvious.